Feds Nix NY Plan to Expand Kids’ Health Care

By Heather Won Tesoriero

The Bush administration rejected an application from New York to offer subsidized health insurance originally developed to help poor children to many middle-income families.

New York wanted to loosen eligibility for the so-called SCHIP program to families with incomes as much as 400% of the federal poverty level, or $82,600, Newsday reports. Gov. Eliot Spitzer estimated that some 70,000 kids in New York would have been eligible for the insurance, if the feds had approved the plan.

Under the SCHIP program, the government subsidize the cost of health coverage, but it’s generally limited to those families at not more than 250% of the poverty level, or $51,625, for a family of four.

Indeed, recent guidelines on eligibility require that a state demonstrate to the feds that it has already signed up at least 95% of poor children in public health programs before expanding the subsidized coverage to children from more prosperous families.

The Empire State didn’t show it had met that threshold. “New York has not demonstrated that its program operates in an effective and efficient manner with respect to the core population of targeted low-income children,” said Kerry Weems, just named acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., called the Bush administration’s decision “unconscionable,” the AP reported.

The Bush administration has taken a hard line on legislation that would expand SCHIP coverage across the country and also made it tougher for states, like New York, to expand coverage to higher-income families with stricter guidelines.